


Empires of Mercy

by dodds



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Avengers Movies RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodds/pseuds/dodds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Empires of mercy, let you fall. Empires of mercy, tear you down. Keep up masks, though foundation's lost. </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Empires are destined to fall. Chris' included. A black out night. Blood on his hands. May all plead in your favour, even if you plead otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empires of Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU, murder fic. Slightly based on 'Jenny Was a Friend of Mine' by the Killers.  
> Slight warning: large metaphor with falling empires and emperors.
> 
> I'm actually really proud of this one so comment c: pwetty please?

Endless streams of people Chris doesn’t want to see. Lawyers. Judges. Friends who think they can be helpful. Friends who come to tell him they don’t ever want to see him again.

Luke who only says that mother and father are heartbroken. Liam who yells at him until the guards force him to leave. Robert who is so angry he can only stare at him for ten minutes. Scarlett who bursts out in tears. Benedict, Jonny and Matt who try to be reasonable until Jonny gets so worked up he drags Benedict away. Jeremy and his name-sake who try to say something comforting but he keeps saying the pain in their eyes. Elsa who breaks off everything there was ever to have, if they even had it at all.

They are all bricks in Chris’ carefully built empire, an empire destined to fall. An empire shaking on its foundations. It was history that thought everyone that empires always fell, but Chris had still build one to hide himself from the world. As an actor, you sometimes need an empire. Safe walls to hide behind. Castles to lock himself in when things went badly.

Destruction is a thing found within the strongest empires. Traitors are in every family. There is always a mistake yet to be made that would send everything into a dark abyss. Chris had made that mistake and he now the price had to be paid. Endless torment, torture with silence that drums loudly in his ears. Touches that aren’t being shared slap him in the face. They leave bruises beneath the surface.

With every friend leaving, a brick disappears, a crack appears, a wall falls. All defenses gets stripped. All soldiers leave. All weapons are being burned. Chris has to rely on a lawyer he doesn’t want to tell anything. It’s all confidential, the lawyer says. No one will ever know what you tell me, the lawyer says. Chris knows better. It are lies to fabricate a new empire, weaker and with a wooden instead of stone wall.

Everything he says to the man, whether it be the truth or a gift wrapped package of lies, will be retold in court, in his advantage, maybe even disadvantage. He knows his lawyer can’t stand him and he doesn’t know whether he wants to be put away for what he did or be set free. Whether to be locked up in the golden prison in the middle of the ruins of his empire, or set free in the wild between the hungry beasts who need food. Between the press that wants answers.

His whole empire lies scattered on the floor and he’s in the middle of it. Kneeling right in the middle of the stones. The dust. The blood. The blood of the one he had held in his arms. If it even were his arms, he doesn’t remember any of it anymore. Like he has blacked it out just afterwards.

His feet are in the mud beneath the cobbles. There are no more smooth paths to walk on, it’s all going to be struggling through the mud and Chris knows it. It’s a hard time to go through and he can’t avoid it any longer.

The lawyer sitting in front of him, a guard at the door. Chris’ hands lie quietly on the table. The chair sits uncomfortable but he never thinks of trying another position. He’s like a statue, but cracks are showing. Not cracks of age, but cracks of beating. Of the earthquakes beneath the empire.

“So, Chris, what happened?” Chris doesn’t answer the question because he can’t answer the question. There is no answer to a question that holds the key to release. Simply because Chris doesn’t remember anything of it. He can’t tell lies because he wants to tell the truth more than anything. If the truth is pleading guilty, he wants to plead guilty. If the truth is being free, he wants to be free. If the truth is unknown, he wants to stay in the court forever with the judges unable to decide his fate. The clock stuck on a certain time. The icy silence before the verdict so endless he’ll die of old age waiting.

The lawyer keeps pushing for answers Chris can’t provide. Answer needed but locked in a part of his mind he can’t access. He tells this. The only words he says are one sentence telling he doesn’t know. His voice sounds hoarse as he spoke. He doesn’t speak a lot anymore. He isn’t a man of many words anymore. Not that he wants to be that. He’s happy in his silence. Or as happy as he can be. As happy as he wants to be.

In his own cell, after the failure of a meeting with the lawyer, Chris falls back on the pillows, trying to empty his mind. But he can’t empty it. Images stream in of all possible scenarios of that night. One seems possible, but another seems more logical. He can’t separate truth from lies anymore, so he merely turns and clutches the pillow and someone else enters to order him to get dinner. He doesn’t want dinner. Food is for the strong and he’s everything but strong.

He’s weak. The foundations are weak. The empire can’t be saved anymore. Blood rains in a storm torture the pained walls even more as he starts crying. Tears of emotions. Tears of emptiness. Tears that don’t mean anything but are just there as a sign of weakness. Tears that roll down his cheek to drip of his jawbone and crash on the pillow. Rain that flooded the streets and took down entire walls of defense.

Empires can’t ever stay and they all have a time period they fall in. Chris’ empire didn’t fell quickly, nor did it take ages. But it went so steadily and almost with dignity, he wanted it to go quicker. To fall so quickly it was an impact so huge one couldn’t possibly overcome. When dead was the only solution. Dead, something Chris can only wish he is. He can’t commit suicide because he’s afraid of facing the other in the beyond.

He’s afraid to leave his empire in the ruins, blood dripping of walls in waves of guilt. Only problem is that he has to pretend he’s okay and he’s not okay. He’ll never be okay until he can prove that he wasn’t the one that caused the blood on his hands. The dead body in his arms. The empty, green eyes staring up in both panic, rest and sadness.

He falls asleep, his arms still clutched around the pillow. His tears mixing with the saliva dribbling out of his mouth. The locks of hair that escape from the bun hang over his face in a manner that make it looks like cracks in a mask. A mask threatening to fall. A gate threatening to let the enemy take over the empire.

All emperors of falling empires die. Whether they die locked up behind the bars of their self-build prison, in the wild because they’re released but no longer loved or when they die. Executed by their own blade, by their best man or by someone they hate. All emperors die. Years after. Months after. Minutes after. They always do. And never of old age.

Walking to justice is like walking unarmed between a pack of hyenas. All cameras pointed at him, walking in shirt and plain black trousers up the stairs between two guards. Shackles remind him of what he has done. Of what he might or might not say. What he knows and what he doesn’t know. What he doesn’t want to know.

Questions shouted at him but he’s a mute. Not on purpose, he just doesn’t know how to say certain words anymore. The emperor takes the secrets to the grave. Chris would bury them in his heart, where they had already been forever. Emperors don’t murder, Chris doesn’t murder, or so he wants to believe. Emperors don’t love, Chris doesn’t love, but that’s merely a lie.

Emperors pretend to love. Their wives. Their subjects. Their family. Their soldiers. Their allies. Even their enemies. Chris did love. Chris still loves. Chris has always loved. His mother. His father. His brothers. The rest of his family. His friends. The press because he had to keep them close. And above all people, _him._ The love of his life. The man he always needed, in good and in bad times.

“Christopher Hemsworth, you are here today, in conviction for the murder on Thomas William Hiddleston. This event took place between two am and six am on the sixth of May, in the year two thousand and twelve after Christ. You were found with him at eight twenty-two am. Do you disagree on any of these facts?”

Chris shakes his head, unable to speak. Of course he agrees, what else is there to do but agree? Tom died the sixth of May. The rapport says between two and six am. He had been found with the body in his arms, tears and blood mixed on his face on that time in the morning.

“Do you have anything to say to defend yourself?” The lawyer stands up and takes the word. The emperor at lost, his counselor left to solve it all. Chris sits there, letting the lawyer do all the talking. The black out. The blood of someone else. Chris knows the blood belongs to a fan who had a head injury due to active, pushy fans. Tom had taken a friendly look at it earlier that day and had forgotten to wash it. It was only two hours before he had died.

“Mister Hemsworth, could you stand up for the judges.” The walk takes ages and there the questions start. The questions he has no answer on. He’s honest or as honest as he can be. He knows already how he’s going to plead.

As they stop. As the time stops. As all things come together. All pieces of the puzzle smashed together in something ugly yet beautiful that isn’t the result it should be.

“Christopher Hemsworth, you are charged with the murder of Thomas William Hiddleston. How do you plead before these judges and everyone in this room as your witness?”

Chris stays silent for a while. His plead is so close but he doesn’t want to say it. He can’t say it. He’s not even sure if it is the truth. It’ll shock so many people. So many broken hearts will be broken again. The ruins will all fall on the ground. The earth will shake and ruin the foundations of the empire.

“Guilty.” It’s so soft no one understands it. The lawyer gives him a confused look but also he didn’t catch it completely.

“Would you mind to repeat that?” He would mind. He does mind. Of course Chris minds. He might have said the biggest lie in his entire life. The press, the animals, will feed on it for weeks. The family, everyone’s heart is so broken it hurts even more. He leaves everyone confused. Everyone hurt. Even himself. He has so many scars he’ll fall apart. He’s mapped for the rest of his life.

“I, Christopher Hemsworth, plead, in front of this room as my witnesses, as guilty on the murder of Tom. _Tommy._ ” He falls into the chair, tears streaming over his face uncontrolled.

Empires of mercy, let you fall. Empires of mercy, tear you down. Keep up masks, though foundation's lost. May the walls shiver upon your arrival as the blood rains sweep you off your boots. Let the cobbles be on your path as through mud you’ll be swimming. All emperors once died, though long and lost they’re hardly forgotten.


End file.
